U.N. Must Include Mental Health Indicators In SDGs

Sep 03, 2015

The Guardian: The United Nations must acknowledge that mental health is a development goal
Patrick J. Kennedy, founder of the Kennedy Forum and former U.S. representative to Rhode Island, and Kathleen M. Pike, professor of psychology and director of the Global Mental Health Program at Columbia University

“…The United Nations must address … mental health as it decides what items will become Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will drive the global agenda for years to come. … What the U.N. decides could make a huge impact on the more than 450 million people around the world who are struggling with mental illness right now. … In the current draft of the SDGs, mental health is included in the preamble as one of the target goals. This is an important breakthrough in helping to reduce the stigma and discrimination that people with mental illness face all over the world. But mental health has not yet been included in the indicators that will be used to monitor and measure progress toward meeting these global goals. This omission should be of grave concern to everyone, because targets without measurements or accountability are toothless. Mental health must be specifically included in the final indicators. If it is not, the reference to mental health will be nothing more than lip service…” (9/2).